Just out of curiosity: how much memory is needed for a year's posting?

Depends on the activity..

I think I read somewhere that the Database was around 50 Mb in April. But here's the issue, it's not so much the size of the database (the space needed) that is the issue. The more data a search has to go through, the longer it takes. And that is basically what a database does, it's all searches (query's) on a vast amount of data. (50 mb of data, clear text, is a LOT)
So it's not a matter of memory, but CPU time for each query. And there are lots of querys in each page you see, and a bunch of people are on the boards at the same time, you can see that it gets pretty intensive.

i guess mike is leting us know what will happen
i dont think this is about "what do you guys think??"
although is a forum and anybody is welcomed to speak their mind
we must accept the boss rules dont you think!!!
so i say it is ok to do what they need to do in order to keep this forum goin on!!!!

I think maybe taking a vote (if possible) would be the thing to do. I know on other message boards I have seen that it does get quite time consuming looking through old posts. Voting on the time frame of 1yr,6mo. or maybe by topic might be of some help.